


and I will love you tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow

by the_ocean_weekender



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 1920s, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sickfic, Thomas Barrow gets the love and care he deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ocean_weekender/pseuds/the_ocean_weekender
Summary: For the Prompt: Thomas and Richard have arranged three days off together, when Thomas comes down with a bug. Any SENSIBLE man would cancel and hole up in bed, but then Thomas is crazy in love. Richard, in turn, does his best mother-hen act.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	and I will love you tonight, and tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I have become a sickfic account and I regret nothing. 
> 
> title is a quote from Vladimir Nabokov

When the knock came at the door, Richard was there in a matter of half-seconds, anticipating having kept him alert on his feet for much of the afternoon. _Thomas was here_. 

It was fortune that had allowed them to meet- fortune in that an aged and distant aunt had passed away and left her cottage to Richard's parents, fortune that no one has known of the aunt until her passing; fortune that the cottage was perfectly distanced from York and Downton, fortune that allowed them both to have three days off and fortune that allowed them to take their leave at the same time. Since meeting Thomas, his life had felt like a very long streak of fortune and he'd no desire to break the pattern. His fingers were suddenly trembling so badly it was a struggle to get the door latch open, everything feeling twice as heavy as before.

He managed it at long last, yanking on the chain and causing Thomas to give a little start on seeing him again. "Hello," Thomas smiled. And it was no coincidence that the sun came out for one last evening-hurrah at the same moment. 

Mindful of neighbours and his overwhelming desire to _touch_ , Richard hurried him in, barely checking to bolt the front door again before turning round and embracing him tight. A soft little exclamation puffed into the air- then warm hands settled on his back and waist in turn, holding him just as tight. _I missed you_ neither needed to say. 

Strong hands moved in slow circles and the curve of a smile rested against his hair. Richard frowned. _Too warm_. When he (reluctantly) pulled back, he frowned to see the transformation in the man from just five minutes ago. A shudder rocked them both, beginning with Thomas, a thing he couldn't hide despite blatantly wanting to. "You look terrible," Richard said, taking in the pale skin and its temperature burning, the eyes so bright they looked near wet, each deeper inhale resulting in a wheeze from somewhere deep inside of him, the tang of salt in the air as he sweated with fever.

He felt another shiver under his hands and Thomas tried to turn his face away. "I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I'll leave then, if you're-"

Less than a heartbeat letter, they were locked in an embrace again, regardless of the heat. "No. You're not going back _there_." This was not an acute ailment that could set upon a man over the period of a short train journey: rather this was the act of too much work and little rest. A hall boy had looked similar once, back in the times of the Spanish Flu, and when he had tried to claim his half-day the housekeeper and took his hand and tucked him back into bed instead, well aware of the dangers travel could make of a chill. 

Thomas gave a sneer of remembered distaste. It turned into a cough. " _Mr_ Branson brought something back from his trip to London. _He_ was practically fine, but the children..." Something in Richard's heart grew larger "...Miss Marigold couldn't settle, so Lady Mary asked me to try and comfort her."

"Which worked, I've no doubt. Those children adore you."

He shrugged again. Up close, he could hear the crackles of his lungs, the heaviness of each inhale and non-existent relief of each exhale, the sharp bones unbelievably hot between all their clothes. 

"This could turn to pneumonia, Thomas. Anyone with an ounce of sense would never have let you out of bed."

He shrugged yet again, "Half the downstairs are abed with the same thing. The half left have different ideas of sense when it concerns me."

"You mean for... men like us?"

"That's probably part of it. But mostly it's because I'm a bastard." He coughed, then after a short pause for consideration added "And cruel."

"I doubt that very much." Not that he couldn't- or didn't- believe for a second that it had never been true, but that he didn't believe for a second that it was still the case _now_. OR at least in recent years that it hadn't been justified. Cruel or not, someone should still have cared. He hated to hear Thomas talk of life in the big house, imagining him lonely with hardly anyone proper to confide in. Thomas wheezed again, then coughed long and hard enough to leave him doubled over and breathless and Richard clutching his shoulders trying to tamp down on fear as red as artillery fire. 

When the wretched fit finally abated, Richard knew at once by the flash of unguarded fear in his eyes that his next course of action needed to be unorthodox and swift. "You'll be tired after the train journey, I'll bet. Why don't I run us a bath?" At the raised eyebrow his question garnered, he added: "Aunt Maude was eccentric it seemed. Not afraid to spend where she thought it counted. There's a bath upstairs big enough to fit three."

Thomas snorted, mindful so it didn't leave him gasping for air again, "You're not inviting someone else round here to try it and see."

Richard couldn't help but laugh.

***

"You were right," he hummed in observation, waiting for the ripples to still before leaning into the broad chest of the man who had just climbed in to sit behind him. "This bath _would_ fit three people."

Richard hummed in turn, carding his hands through Thomas' soft hair to wet it for the soap. "Told you so." The heat rising made the flesh beneath his touch feel clammy. He didn't know if that was a good or bad thing, confronted with pale skin that washed of fever looked wan and water colour. 

There were no rules to this infatuation he had fallen into, he'd realised soon after falling into it; his love for this man between his legs was a forest fire and smouldered with an unbearable flame until it roared at unexpected times. He kissed the back of Thomas' head instead, picturing the way he knew his eyes would close in pleasant surprise at feeling cherished. _I love you_. He said "Lean back a bit" and when he did started to wash his hair. 

He submitted to the coddling with an air that wasn't quite resigned and stayed silent throughout except to softly murmur halfway through, "Don't think anyone's done this for me before."

He didn't allow his hands to stop their movements, "You'd better get used to it."

He let that go without comment, content to follow his lead. In turn, Richard let them sit in the bath until the water grew cold and Thomas' shivers started making ripples on the surface of the water again.

***

Richard first caught sight of _that_ look on Thomas' face, briefly, the first night they met. He saw it for the umpteenth time this day when he was placing cups of tea on the nightstands on each of their respective sides of the bed (how little they had the opportunity to go to bed together, yet still in spite of that had a preferred side of the bed). "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" he asked.

Perhaps he should have kept quiet- the unsettledness bloomed into a flower and cracked his pale mask apart, shards of glass crashing onto rock. Thomas shifted and was unable to quite pretend he was merely ensuring the movement of the mattress didn't upset the tea in the teacups. 

"What is it?"

"Why do you keep... I'm sorry I've ruined our time together."

With a frown, Richard moved closer, though unwilling to add his heat to that of the fever and equally unwilling to continue this train of dialogue with a gulf between the two of them. "You've not ruined a thing." 

A sceptical-snort-turned-cough, "Nurse-maiding me was _not_ what you had planned for this, I'm sure."

"No, but..." he had to stop and think before he spoke again; had to put a certainty to each word he lay down between them, unsure that a misstep wouldn't make a fragile thing within Thomas break apart altogether. "I only wanted _you_. With no caveats on your well-being, or anything of the sort. You turned up. That is... _You're_ all I want." 

Something cracked apart in his face anyway, in spite of his care. 

"What is it?" he took one hand off the handle of the tea cup and clasped the other's hands tight. It felt horrid, to be in bed with another man and not to have every problem of their lives instantly solved by the opportunity to love freely. He knew, on some other level, that this was an experience common to men of all types and it felt delicious, too. 

Thomas lowered his eyes before saying anything else, this time breathless and voice low for another reason. Despair hung in the air and it was potent. "I keep ruining things. Even when I don't mean to. I keep... there's nothing I can touch that doesn't break."

"It's been three years, Thomas, you haven't broken me yet." Perhaps he should have headed this talk off at the pass and postponed it for another time and discussed trivial things instead, the way his complexion was growing steadily whiter than the bed sheets. Then again, would there not be some satisfaction in feeling ill, wringing oneself out a little further to the point of exhaustion, to be able to wake up to a clean slate? Whatever the answer... it was too late now. Their conversation hurtled on- a runaway train slipping from its tracks. 

"You don't know everything. Give it time and I will."

Richard felt very sad and very put-upon, suddenly. The Great British Spirit rallying itself at last. "I think you ought to give me a _little_ credit," he emphasised strongly, taking both their teacups away so they could hold one another without distraction. "I'm stronger than I look."

"You look strong already," Thomas replied, then blushed obviously in spite of his fever, the way he always did once he realised he'd complimented him so forthrightly. "I mean..."

"I know what you meant." He leant over and added a kiss to the embrace as well. Why not? 

"Be more careful," he chided. "You'll catch what I've got."

"Hmmm." The prospects seemed worth a kiss or two- especially from this man. Until he thought of fever dreams in his room in the Servant's Quarters, no one bar a harried hall boy to bring food, and Thomas' name on his lips in delirium. He conceded with a sigh and leaned back, though only a slight way aways. "Alright, alright. But you remember what I said: I want you."

"I'll remember," murmured Thomas, face washed out with awe. "You want me."


End file.
